Monday, November 23, 2009

Football Player Rankings Are Being Updated...RB's

4/15/10I was very encouraged by the fact that even during the middle of the high school basketball season, when I was covering the heck out of NH high school hoops and there were 900 people a day checking the site talking basketball, there was actually still quite a bit of football discussion that was going on. Even during the months of January, February and March, there was still at least 5-10 comments per day being made on football topics. It shows that that there are definitely a lot of die hard football fans in this state.

I took down the football player rankings a couple of months ago, but I have updated them and will be re-releasing them this week. First up is the running back position...

The Big FourWhen you look at the rankings, you have 17 good players, but the first four names are the ones that really jump out at you. Fedrick, Jacques, Williams and Kelly. Any one of these kids could be the best player in the state this upcoming season. All four were dominating players last year and should only be better in 2010. Let's take a closer look at each:

Jerickson Fedrick: This kid is a beast. He is the kind of athlete you rarely see come out of New Hampshire. The kid is only a sophomore in high school, but he already has an excellent combination of size, strength, power and speed. He will be a Division I football player, the question is how high of a D-I program will he go to? And just how dominant will he be by the time he's a senior in 2011?

Max Jacques: Unreal combination of speed and athleticism. He has a strong build, but he does lack height at only about 5'5", 5'6" tops. Had some flat out monster games last season as a junior. I was at Stellos Stadium to witness his 331 yard 5 TD game against Nashua South.

Andre Williams: If anything Williams is more of a power back, as he will wear down teams little by little. A 5 yard gain here, a 10 yard run there. Not as many 40 or 50 yard runs as a Jacques or Kelly. But Williams will consistently get you 10-15 yard gains. He had a huge game last year vs. Central and I also saw him play very well late in the year at Pinkerton.

Mike Kelly: Kelly has crazy speed, I would pay to see him race Jacques in a 40 yard dash. Of the four backs highlighted here, Kelly is easily the most versatile. He runs it up the middle. He runs it outside the tackles. He catches screen passes. He catches passes downfield. He returns kicks and punts. And oh by the way he plays defensive back as well. It should be interesting to see how Guertin uses him this season. Last year they had Adam Hall taking most of the carries. And they also had other backs like Tommy Barille, Nick Phillips and Elias Kassis. So Kelly just got 3-5 carries a game and then the rest of the time he lined up as a wideout. But this year Kelly is the team's only returning ball carrier. Regardless of how they use him, Kelly and QB Steve Cuipa are just too talented for every defense that they will face in Division-II this season except for Winnacunnet.

Who Replaces Cavanaugh?Should be interesting to see who gets carries at Central, with the graduation of star back Mike Cavanaugh. Last few years Cavanaugh has been the Central offense, and has gotten almost all of the carries. Sam Graham was a solid player for the Little Green last season, getting some carries and also going out for passes. Khari Halliburton is another player who got some carries last year. He was second on the team in rushing attempts behind Cavanaugh. And freshman Justin Bradley came on strong late in the year. Graham, Halliburton and Bradley will all battle for carries. Central knows they have a good QB in Jared Chandler and a very good young wideout in Junior Brown. Should be interesting to see how the carries are divided, because Central could be one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the division.

Can Calvetti Carry the Load?Central isn't the only team that has to replace star back. Souhegan has to replace the 2009 Mr. Football winner Steven Jellison. Nick Calvetti got some carries last year as a junior, and had a few pretty long runs. He has plrnty of speed. But he lacks size, so the question is do they run him between the tackles consistienly even though he's more of an outside the tackles kind of back. And if Calvetti doesn't get the tough yards inside then who does?

Are they Backs or Receivers?At this point you're not quite sure how BG will use Kelly offensively. Well he is by no means the only player that fits that description. There are a bunch of players who have the ability to play either halfback or receiver. In addition to the speedy Kelly, there's Portsmouth's Bill Lane, Londonderry's Sean O'Gorman, Pinkerton's Luke Somers, Nashua South's Armond McRae and Central's Sam Graham. Even Calvetti and Gathright from North will both "run it and catch it" for their teams. Having players with that kind of versatility is very nice to have for any coach. It's a new season though. Will these players continue to do "double duty" or will their teams need them to focus on just one position? It's only the beginning of April, we have a lot of time to find out...

89 comments:

Jeremy, Coach Gati discovered Alex Sobrados replacement last year in JV. The kid scored 17 TDs in the 8 JV games he played (usually done by halftime). Up until last year he has had foot problems and had been unable to play fulltime. He will be introduced to NH football as a senior and with Jacques and Fedrick in the backfield, it should be interesting. He will just be turning 17 in August so he is a young senior and was still a very small junior. Coach Gati has managed to talk him into lifting at the school and he has been doing so since the season ended. If you have contact with Gati ask him about him. Salem once again should have a 3 headed running game. I agree with number one in your rankings, Fedrick is ready for a breakout season.

Maybe not best running back in the state, however that's defined, bit definately best playmaker is mike Kelly. Hands down. Kelly toasted Jacques in the scrimmage last year. Yeah sure go ahead with the "scrimmage" excuse everyone loves. No one actually buys it

Please stop with the scrimmage I have said it before coaches in the huddle and on the field, plays stopped mid stream for teaching lessons, no special teams please they are not games. We will see how Mike and Max do against each other in September but please you can not make that type of comparison or statement from a scrimmage.

Jeremy, Too much love for the DI and DII schools. How about the other divisions. Yea I know nobody seems to care about the rest. Well I do, and when you are talking about backs that are versatile, you can't over look Shannon Tucker out of Newfound. Yes he was overshadowed by Kevin Brady of Inter-Lakes and Pat Sanborn of Winnisquam. Scored 19 TD's.Tucker is only a Sophomore, was 3rd in rushing yardage, but had a better yards per carry then Brady and Sanborn. Lead the division in receptions...i think nearly 25 yards per. As a kick return man averaged 40+ per touch. Got to a point that teams where kicking pretty much on side kicks so he wouldn't touch the ball. Plays FS on defense and there has yet to be anyone that can out run this kid. I'm sure there are other players in other divisions just like him, that no one knows about because most people don't care.

11:49 I personally can't wait until the Salem-BG REAL GAME on Sept 3rd 2010. It seems as if for the most part Salem is not predicting any outcomes, but the BG crowd is pretty confident that they will previal.

I agree with your comments on Calvetti. I watched alot of SHS and I think he has real boom or bust potential. SHS runs a lot of zone so if Calvetti learns to find running lanes his size won't hurt him to much. However, he won't be able to make the same yards Jellison did when the defense penetrated. Junior (next season) Jack Nelson also got junk time carries, while senior (next season) Eric Dwinell split time with Calvetti as backup for Jellison before moving to the o-line. RB is certainly the biggest question mark for SHS this year, and I'd imagine it is one of the few true "open" spots on their starting roster.

49-7 and annihilate maybe a bit strong..we'll see...although it's fair to say that BG may never field as strong a team as they did last year. That being said, they return enough to be highly respectable.

Who wouldn't give them full tuition? There the only offensive threats that can beat you. That being said I do think they are overrated. Track and lifting numbers have alot less to do with football than people tend to think. Two outstanding players no doubt about it, I'm just not going to worship them like everyone else seems to love doing

Another player who fits into that RB/WR category is Merrimack's Jackson King. He was one of the top sophomore players around last season. It should be interesting to see how the Tomahawks use him this year, especially with the team's other top playmaker from a year ago, Brandon Quinno graduated.

5:30As a Sophomore and Junior last year, they led the league in many catergories on the Football field on a team the had 4 returning starters and 0 returning Offensive linemen. They are not Track kids that are good at football, they are football players that are good at track. Jacques was the Gatorade NH football player of the year.

There is another back from Bedford that may make some noise next year as well. I think his name maybe Jordan something, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure his dad coaches. I think he had at least 2 big runs against SHS. I'd bet he makes top 10 before the year is out. Bedford has the chance to be a surprise team this year in DIII. There freshman team SMOKED SHS 40-something to 13 or so, which was the programs (frosh/jv/varsity) since 2007. I didn't see the freshman game but heard that alot of those kids saw varsity time against SHS, and they gave SHS a game for the first half.

The worst thing to do is give BG extra motivation by telling them they will be bad. That way Johnson will leave his starters in for a whole game and run up the score like Belichek did.Just to prove a point to the naysayers.

Sleeper in all of this, didn't play rb last year because of his value on defense, mike trainor of the winnacunnet warriors will be a top 5 running back. It may sound crazy right now but as a former whs back I know trainors for real, watch out d2

Yeah 8:16 not to mention whs had two solid backs and it was his first varsity year, he played running back in a few games and faired well. With the class of 2010 leaving its gonna be a real hassle trying to tackle the 200 pound train

Jeremy, Souhegan has two very strong sophomore backs coming up in Jack Nelson and Brandon O'Connell, both have speed and good agility. Nelson is more of a power back and O'Connell burns kids with his cuts in the open field, it should be interesting to see how this year plays out for SHS

They could also move Almeida from slot to RB as well. He's got blazing speed, nice moves, and apparently has been lifting and getting pretty big this offseason. I personally think Calvetti will start out at RB, but if he struggles between the tackles with his size don't be surprised to see him switch with Almeida to the slot. Just one of the rumors I've been hearing.

Salem is going to snap BG in 2 like a branch. There is no way the can compete with any decent teams this year. They have no defense coming back and only Kelly in the backfield. See ya , they go 500 at best.

500 at best? Please. Two years ago they were returning almost no one and their junior (last years senior) class stepped up bigtime. They have one of the top qbs and rbs in the state returning not to mention a weak d2 schedule. I'd be surprised if they weren't in the d2 ship next year. Not surprised if they lost there. They are a factory like nowhere else in the state.

I agree BG is capable of losing games to Winnacunnet, Dover, and Alvirne. They only return a couple key players so at the very least they will lose a couple close games early on in the season. Regardless once they begin to work as a team, like ev every year before them, they will probably get hot and win Div 2 state championship.

I've had enough of BG. There are other teams, in other divisions. What will happen to Plymouth? Is Souhegan going to be good again? What about Portsmouth? Salem? North? Laconia? Even Trinity as long as it's not BG. We've talked about BG enough for the next 10 seasons. I'd even rather hear about Pelham. There are more teams in this state than BG.

I agree with 12:32, there are plenty of things to talk about other than BG vs Salem. These are the 3 things I'm looking for to this season1) Division RealignmentThe new division alignments are sure to throw some interesting twists into the playoff races. It will be very interesting to see how Exeter fairs in D1. A consistent D2 power that prides itself on playing mistake free football and has held there own in cross-over games might be at least in the hunt for a playoff spot. Also, Pelham in D3 and Trinity in D4. Might Trinity be the team to knock off Plymouth?It may not be perfect (3 divison, 6 conferences or at least BG in D1 and SHS in D2) but I'd say this is the closest to balanced NH high school football has been in a while. 2) Playoff racesAs someone who watches a lot of D3 games I'm interested to see if D3 football might actually get its act together this year and produce more than 2 good teams. Adding Pelham and losing John Stark was a plus. Bedford and Hollis/Brookline are both newer schools who enjoyed some success last year. SHS is still the clear favorite but they did have their best team in school history last year and lost some key pieces as did Portsmouth. Finally D3, long dominated by Plymouth, then SHS might finally have 6 or 7 teams with legit shots at a playoff berth. Same goes for BG in D2, clear favorite but graduated their best senior class ever. D1 is always an open race and when you add in the possible fall of Plymouth to Trinity or Laconia and NH might actually have 4 good playoffs/playoff races.3)Crossover gamesSHS vs Londonderry, SHS vs Central, BG vs Salem. Those three are certainly the main events and will go a long way in determining the top team in the state for the year. If SHS were to beat both Londonderry and Central and BG were to beat Salem we could see the top two teams from NH not playing in D1.

Pelham petitioned up to play D3. I would guess its due to travel. Imagine the bus ride from Plytmouth to Pelham. D4 is completely filled with northern teams so every game would be a tough bus trip for someone.

A move to D3 is hardly "earned". Pelham chose to petition up to D3 while John Stark was petitioning down to D4. 30 miles is in fact a lot when you really think about it. 4 road trips (not counting playoffs/scrimmages or jamborees), with lets say a 25 mile difference (between Pelham and Trinity) each way. 50X4=200 extra miles and close to one extra hour of bus time. If a bus gets 20 miles to the gallon thats 10 extra gallons of gas and 4 extra hours of bus time that teams need to pay for. And I promise you buses do not get 20 MPG. With teams have to charge kids to play a lot of schools need to "cut some fat". For the record, I would have liked to see Trinity in D3 with Pembroke heading to D4 as well.

Unless Trinity petitioned up to D3 and was denied, then Trinity got sent where they asked to go. Its really not a reward to play D3, Pelham has more kids so they fit in better in D3. Also, like you said it was possibly the best season Trinity will ever have and Trinity is a very small school. D3 would be the highest enrollment they could ever compete in, unless they start openly recruiting. Lets not jump the gun and say they need to be in D3. Pelham has more of a chance to be competitive in D3 long term because of the feeder program and larger enrollment even though last years Trinity team was much better than Pelham. Trinity will have more than enough competition with Laconia and Plymouth. It just makes more sense for Pelham to be in D3. In two years I would love to see Trinity in D3, replacing Pembroke.

Oh, well that changes things a little. I do think Trinity could be as competitive as Pembroke has been, at the very least. I would say that in two years, if Trinity is a top D4 team (runner up both years at least), then they should swap spots with Pembroke. But still Manchester is much easier to get to than Pelham from up north.

Jermey, me and some other people were talking about your blog and we all want too know, Have you seen all 17 of these players play? Or do you base some of the rankings off what you hear. We are just wondering how your ank things. Thank you

speaking of sprinters guinto from pinkerton ran 10.7 in the 100m yesterday. looks like his knee might finally be better. Player was electric before his injury at the end of his junior year. does anyone know where he is going to school?

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About Me

I'm a local radio broadcaster and reporter who covers NH High School football and basketball for WGAM Friday Night Lights 900/1250 AM Nashua/Manchester and in the past for 1540 AM WXEX in Exeter and WTSN AM 1270 in Dover. I cover NH athletes as a correspondent for the New England Recruiting Report. I attended the University of New Hampshire where I broadcasted UNH football, basketball and hockey games for all four years and graduated with a degree in Communication and minor in Sport Studies.